Arabic translation of Galen’s On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body
Kamran Karimullah is Lecturer in Islamic Thought at The University of Manchester and is the Principal Investigator, JRRI Pilot grant 2023-24.
‘Islam, teleology and Galen: A preliminary investigation of the Arabic translation of On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body’ is a one-year pilot grant funded by the John Rylands Research Institute to conduct preliminary research on the Arabic translation of On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, the influential book on human anatomy and physiology by the eminent physician and philosopher, Galen of Pergamum (d. ca. 216 CE). As part of the project, Kamran and his collaborator, Dr Hammood Obaid, will transcribe several chapters from John Rylands Library MS 809, one of just four surviving manuscript copies of the medieval Arabic translation of Galen’s book by the celebrated Arabic translator Ḥunyan ibn Isḥāq (d. 873 CE). The transcription will be displayed in parallel with images of the digitised manuscript in the Manchester Digital Collections.
The John Rylands manuscript will be transcribed with the help of the three remaining copies of the Ḥunayn’s translation, making this project an important first step in producing the first complete critical edition of the Arabic On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body. The parallel transcription will make it easier for researchers around the world to access the John Rylands manuscript. It will uncover important clues in the transmission history of this important medieval Arabic scientific text. Finally, it will provide the groundwork for a larger project that aims at critically editing Ḥunayn’s Arabic translation and exploring how Galen’s groundbreaking text shaped subsequent developments in Islamic intellectual history.
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John Rylands MS 809 is part of the Library Digital Collections: